Making everyone happy is impossible. Pissing them off is a piece of cake. I like cake.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Clarkson again...

And so Spiked! weighs in again on Clarkson, pointing out that this so-called offensive, racist oaf helped to propel Top Gear to be the most watched factual programme in the entire world.

When Clarkson’s suspension was announced, one of the first to express sadness was his Farsi voiceover, Mozaffar Shafeie, who helps to translate Top Gear for the benefit of the show’s multitude of viewers in Iran. As much as it might grate on the tender sensibilities of Clarkson’s detractors in the UK, his oafish, crass manner is actually fundamental to his popularity in the Islamic Republic. ‘His humour is so inappropriate and not at all what you hear on state TV’, said the BBC’s Darius Bazargan, who made a documentary in 2008 about motor racing in Tehran, before adding, ‘that must account for some of [Top Gear’s] appeal’.

Oddly enough*, that's pretty much why I enjoyed Top Gear too.

This jolly, life-affirming show about risk-taking and camaraderie, one only superficially devoted to automobiles, has done more than any other TV show to spread happiness and bring people together on a global scale.

Quite.

* I don't, of course, mean "oddly": I am drawing a direct comparison between the legal and religious authoritarianism of the disgusting Iranian regime, and the social fascism of the bien pensant media classes in this country—and the tacit support given to them by our cowardly politicos.